“Godzilla -0.0” (“Godzilla Minus Zero”), the sequel to the Academy Award-winning “Godzilla Minus One,” opened in theaters across Japan on November 3, with its cast gathering for an opening-day photo call at TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills in Tokyo. According to the film’s distributor, the movie’s opening-morning box office hit 201% of what its predecessor earned on its own first morning, giving the sequel a fast start.
The film picks up two years after the events of “Godzilla Minus One,” in 1949 Japan, as a country still rebuilding from war faces a fresh threat. Ryunosuke Kamiki (神木隆之介) returns as lead character Koichi Shikishima, alongside Minami Hamabe (浜辺美波) as Noriko, who miraculously survived a Godzilla attack in the first film. Director, writer, and VFX supervisor Takashi Yamazaki (山崎貴) joined them on stage along with cast members Yuki Yamada (山田裕貴), Mio Tanaka (田中美央), Masami Nagasawa (長澤まさみ), Min Tanaka (田中泯), and Hidetaka Yoshioka (吉岡秀隆).
Greeted with chants of his nickname, Yamazaki admitted he had been obsessively checking social media reactions the night before. Kamiki said he had been looking forward to the release for a long time and described how Shikishima’s motivations have shifted from guilt to protecting his family. Hamabe teased that a strange mark left on Noriko’s neck at the end of the first film becomes a key plot point, while Yamada, reprising his role as crew member Shiro Mizushima, joked that his social media feed had become “entirely Godzilla.”
Nagasawa, who plays meteorologist Makoto Aoyama in the new installment, recalled enjoying the physically demanding shoot. “I loved the scenes where I get covered in grime — it really got my feelings fired up,” she said. Yamazaki added that “the more you get a beautiful person dirty, the brighter the light that shines through the cracks,” noting he felt the same about Hamabe’s character in the previous film. Mio Tanaka, playing former destroyer captain Tatsuo Hotta, said he imagined his character spending two uneasy years wondering if the threat was truly over, while Min Tanaka, who plays war-scarred biologist Kanji Murakami, called it the most demanding work of his career. Yoshioka, back as Kenji Noda — now head of the disaster countermeasures office — recounted how Kamiki proposed a last-minute line change the day before filming a key scene, which both he and Yamazaki agreed to use. The event closed with the reveal of a silhouette of King Ghidorah from the upcoming film.
Who is Ryunosuke Kamiki?
Ryunosuke Kamiki is a Japanese actor who has worked in film since childhood, known internationally for voicing lead roles in Makoto Shinkai’s animated films “Your Name” and “Suzume,” as well as his live-action role as Koichi Shikishima in “Godzilla Minus One,” which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. He has built a reputation for versatile performances across both animation and live-action Japanese cinema.
Author’s Comment
A 201% opening versus the last film? Honey, that’s not a sequel bump, that’s Toho printing money while bowing politely. I love that the big emotional beat of this press conference wasn’t the monster, it was Nagasawa practically glowing about getting filthy on camera — only in Japanese entertainment do actors talk about grime like it’s a spa day. And can we talk about Kamiki casually rewriting his own line the night before shooting and everyone just… rolling with it? That’s either supreme trust or supreme fear of the golden boy, and honestly, in this industry, it’s usually both. Ghidorah’s silhouette teaser at the end was the real mic drop, but I’m still thinking about Yamazaki’s little theory that getting a beautiful person dirty makes them shine brighter. Sir, that’s either brilliant filmmaking philosophy or something you should maybe keep to yourself.
